Mobile suit GUndam Spirer: The smoking sky
by Kakerott
Summary: A series of stores, that cover the early part of Alex Palmers service in the ATU, Airial Tacticts Unit.


As always, I'd like your opinion of my story so, please, drop me a line.

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I have finally managed to come up with a control system. One that, hopefully, can be considered plausible. For the most part it is the typical levers and buttons. However, the positioning of some of the buttons created something of a problem. I couldn't keep reeling off a paragraph every time a button was pressed so, I created a simple identifier for each button. Below you will find a rough guide to the Olympion's main button system. Since Fan fiction dot net won't allow pictures I've had to use words. Try to imagine that the buttons are attached to a right hand lever.

Fore trigger Middle trigger

(the main trigger) (specialist Trigger)

Up point

Left point Right point

End Button

Down point

Thumb Trigger

* * *

The Smoking sky.

Call to Arms (Part one)

Chapter 1: Fury

Alex Palmer stood from his lying position, a smile on his face and his precious prize gently held in his hand, having fallen the last several yards, Alex was expecting the flower to be ruined. However, it appeared that Alex was lucky in that the flower was undamaged. Turning Alex raked his gaze over the other members of his year. Each of the students wore there uniform, grey trousers, though there where a few skirts on the girls; an exception not a rule, and white shirt under blue blazers with the shield like school symbol on it. Ignoring the strangling feeling of his blue and grey tie cinched across his throat like a noose, Alex caught sight of a member of his group, Helena. She was a small girl, not yet hitting puberty and a little on the shy side because of it. Most of the others of their year where already starting to buy there bras, some already had them, and complain about there periods. Alex wasn't sure why it mattered, it had never bothered him that he was in the same position, shorter then the other boys and had yet to develop any kind of muscle at all. They both had to simply wait for it to happen, they couldn't do anything else really. Alex didn't doubt the fact that she would have an attractive figure when she finally made the transition to teenager. Helena was standing furthest away from the class, eyeing another group, more specifically one of the girls in the group, a look of adoration on her face. Alex flicked his eyes from his group member to the person she was looking at, Melanie.

Melanie was one of the most sort after girls in the school, by both girls and boys, and had yet to give any kind of indication as to who among her many admirers she would pick. Alex switched his gaze to the young woman, trying to imagine Melanie in the same light as those who admired her. Alex had heard some rumour or other that pegged her as the illegitimate child of a member of the Royal family, though there was no proof of it, other then her superior manner. She was certainly attractive, her figure was far more developed then the average fourteen year old, looking closer to sixteen in development when compared to any of the other girls in the year. That added another factor to her superior attitude, Alex simply found it annoying. As to her looks, the average Sixteen year had the same figure. Was it her intelligence? Perhaps, though he did find it kind of annoying whenever she corrected him, since she often went off on long winded snobby explanations that weren't really necessary. Was it her athletic ability? Doubtful, there where girls far better then her at sports. A curvy figure didn't mean an active person, and Alex had never seen her doing anything that wasn't mandatory for the school. Her personality? Alex found that she rubbed him the wrong way, not on purpose, and they certainly weren't at each others throats all the time but, Alex found, that he simply preferred to stay out of her radius as much as possible.

With the other two members of the group absent, one with an injury, the other with an illness, Alex and Helena where the only ones who could do the job, though the teacher had added them to Melanie's group for the sake of safety. They still had to wright the report up on there own.

Alex lifted his hand catching the attention of one of the boys in the farthest group who happened to look up at the time. Giving him a little smile, the boy waved back, more of a flick , then an actual wave. Alex nodded to him in greeting. The boy, while not a close friend, was certainly someone Alex enjoyed being in the company of. His name was Ashley he was taller then Alex, who only came up to his shoulders, and filled out his uniform with an athletic build. He was a sports star having joined a local football team at an early age, outside of school. At the moment, it being the off season for football, Ashley was part of a cricket team. As a result, between school, home work and club activities, Ashley only got a small amount of time to himself. While the taller, dark haired boy often had other people he could hang out with, and often did, he didn't ignore Alex if he came across him, often inviting him to hang out with him and his friends at the arcade. He was very much a team player, gathering people to him, even for something as simple as hanging out at the park; people always seemed to get along when they where with him, he seemed to all ways know what to say, how to say it to get the result he was looking for.

Casually, Alex lifted his prize, showing the other boy what he had found. Turning to him more fully, Ashley started moving towards the smaller boy, drawing the attention of the other members of the group as he did so. Melanie called out to Ashley, confusion her voice. Ashley called back to her and kept going. Reluctantly, the group followed, Helena gravitating behind them as they moved. Alex held up the flower so Ashley could see it more closely. "A white Bell" said Ashley, sounding faintly surprised. The White Bell was one of two flowers that was created artificially in the latter half of the twenty first century. These two flowers where identical, with the exception of the colouring of the petals, one was snow white, the other crimson, vibrant red.

According to history class, these two marvels where completed just before the beginning of the project to build the first fully functional A.E.E, Artificial Enclosed Environment, began. With the completion of the A.E.E, samples of all forms of life, from trees to animals where sent along with the original inhabitants of the A.E.E, most of whom where scientists and there families. During those early years, the White Bell flourished under the artificial conditions in the A.E.E. Unfortunately, during a particularly vicious battle in space during the War of the Bells, the A.E.E that was cultivating them was destroyed, resulting in the white bells almost completely disappearing. "I didn't know they grew out here" Ashley said, looking taken by the beautiful flower held delicately by the slimmer boy. Looking up at Alex with curious hazel eyes, Ashley asked very simply, "where did you find it?" Alex grinned, proud of himself.

"Over here" he said, Just as the other members of the joint group arrived. Melanie gasped, the surprise written to a greater degree on her face. "A snow Bell", she said, using one of the many names for the bell shaped flower. Alex found his hand seized and his vision completely taken up with a large set of green eyes with blond hair framing them. "Where did you get this?" she asked, "I haven't seen one of these since daddy bought me one when I was little." she declared eagerly "Of cause, mine was much prettier then this one" she added, almost as an after thought. Alex had to wonder how one flower could be considered more beautiful then another flower of the same kind. From what he'd seen, Alex thought they all looked the same. Then again, he never claimed to be some kind of an expert on pretty things. "Follow me" he said, pulling his hand free from the bone crushing grip of the blond and turned on his heel while the others inspected his find. Ashley quickly caught up, walking shoulder to shoulder with him. Neither of them needed to talk now they both had some thing interesting to see. "Hurry up!!" Called Ashley to the group. Obviously they where still inspecting the flower when he had turned to see where they were. Alex stopped and waited with Ashley while the other members of the group walked over to them, chatting excitedly between themselves. Of the entire group only Melanie, by her own admittance, had actually seen A White, or Snow Bell before. The others, though did know about the history, and tragedy of the Twin Bells, the ideas behind them, and the symbols they, eventually, became. It was rather exciting to be a part of this discovery, to know that these flowers bloomed in the wilds, even though they had died in space. Alex wondered how they came to be here, in this remote place.

During the Chaos War, Named so because it was every country for themselves, this area had been a town called Hanna. However, the town was completely destroyed, leaving the entire area nothing but a crater with newly formed mountains. After the war a town was built here, replacing Hanna. As time moved on, the once barren landscape began to flourish again. The town, named Moorsville, after the First Pilot; who had lived here after the war, had been built some twelve miles or so to the north of the students current location. The students where standing in a large, horseshoe shaped bowel, with tall walls of rock blocking there direct path in front, to the left and the right. There was only one way in or out of this area and that was the way they had come. The field trip the students of Steven Moore upper school where involved in was the detection and classification of the veracious indigenous planet life in the area. Afterwards they would have to write a comparison between the wild, local foliage and the controlled scientific foliage.

Alex Started off again as the rest of the group caught up to them, making sure that he didn't get too far ahead of them,in his eagerness. The last time he had been in this area, looking for a unique flower to write about, Alex had stumbled across a gap in the rock that made an alley or hall way. Having already found this gap once, the young man was confidant he could find it again, without much trouble. However, it was in such a position that from any other point in the clearing, the gap couldn't be seen, thus if some one was watching it would appear that Alex had simply disappeared right in front of them. He wanted to avoid any confusion. "It's right through here." said the young man, having to side step to get through the gap. Slowly, one after the other, the rest of the group followed him. The passage was a long one and, he knew from experience that the passage would have to give way. So he kept moving. There was only one direction to go in, two if retreading steps counted as a direction, and Alex knew what to expect on the other side. "Are we there yet?" Asked one of the other girls, Kirsty? Kristina? A name that began with Kay anyway. Alex inhaled, sharply, as his back scrapped against a sharp rock that was protruding from the wall he was resting his back against. Swallowing a curse of pain along with anger at himself, he'd done the same thing the first time he was here. At least that meant they where in the final stretch. The last time, it had only been a few minutes after the scrape that he had left the confining gap. "Almost" said Alex, once he was confident he didn't sound like he was in pain. "use your hands, there's a sharp rock coming up ahead of you." Said Alex, why he hadn't thought of it, Alex wasn't quite sure but, at least, he could make sure that the others didn't get hurt. If he couldn't learn from his mistakes, at least he could give others the benefit of his experiences.

Unexpectedly, Alex tumbled backwards, the wall he was using to navigate the confined passage no longer there to support him. He'd done that last time too. Pulling himself to the standing position Alex noticed a shape wafting in the air, Ashley's voice coming from the depths of the darkness. "Alex? Are you there?" Alex made his way back up the small slope he'd slipped down, his eyes adjusting to the sliver of sunlight coming from the whole in the ceiling. "Alex? Are you there, speak to me." Said Ashley, sounding a little concerned. From his perspective, there was every possibility that there was nothing directly in front of him and the fact that the guide had spontaneously disappeared from beside him meant that something bad could have happened. "Yeah" said Alex, "I'm okay, just slipped on some loose Gravel." Alex called back. Reaching the gap again, Alex looked down, taking note of the loose debris in front of him. "Okay, stay there a sec, I'll clear the path so you don't slip" Alex said, crouching to sweep the loose rocks over the edge and deeper into the earth. "Clear" called Alex, Standing up from his completed task. "Be really careful when you out, there's not much of a ledge here. Take it slow and move one at a time" Warned Alex. "I'll let you know when your clear to come out" Alex told them. He heard Ashley passing the statement down the line.

Slowly Ashley emerged from the darkness, scrunching his eyes closed as the weak light blinded him. Disorientated, Ashley stood still, waiting for his sight to return. Alex moved to his side and guided him down the slope, the only way to traverse the small cave. By the time they had reached the bottom of the slope, Ashley was able to see again. "You wait here, I'll guide the others" said Alex. Ashley nodded and Alex scrambled back up the slight slope. One after the other, taking it slow and steady, the group slowly emerged from the tight confines of the gap and into the cave. When Helena joined the others in looking around, Alex worked his way through the group to the farthest side, traversing the only path available, the bridge like structure that they where standing on. "I don't see any flowers" said the girl with the Kay at the start of her name. "There this way" said Alex, mounting a collection of boulders that formed a crude staircase to the whole in the ceiling. Turning Alex offered his hand to the group "Come on, we've come this far, might as well go all the way, right" he said, encouragingly. The others looked at each other, they hadn't really gone that far, it wasn't like they had been gone hours, nor was it like they had been attacked in any way, they where simply going to have to climb through a hole in the ceiling and take a look at some flowers. Melanie advanced first "All right but this had better not be a prank" she warned. Alex bent down, still above her and took her outstretched hand to help her up. With Alex as her support, Melanie worked her way to the mouth of the hole and disappeared through it. The others flowed after her, Alex pulling himself out last.

Straitening up, Alex reflexively dusted off his hands, pulling the bits of gravel from his hands, "Well, what do you think?" he asked, feeling a little proud of himself. Scattered before the group was a sea of white, each of them standing three inches tall, proudly reaching for the sky. The small Plato they stood on was the flattened peek of a small mountain. Alex looked out across the horizon, moving away from the hole to stand at the very edge, looking out at the wildly growing plant life that had once been baron wasteland. "Beautiful" said Helena, turning, Alex saw the her inspecting a fully flowered White bell, the one he'd taken with him was a younger, not yet fully developed White Bell. Alex noticed that the others had also scattered themselves among the plants, being as careful and respectful to the beatitude flower as they possibly could.

A shadow flicked across Alex's line of sight. Instinctively, he tried to track the movement, find it's source. Looking up, Alex saw an eagle soaring above them. Though the bird was too high to see in any detail, Alex recognised the general shape, and with the deaths of many species of animals during the Chaos war, those that where left where easy to identify as they where one of the only few left. Watching the powerful, agile creature sweep it's wings in graceful beats as it crossed the sky; Alex found himself wondering what it would be like to fly. Just the wide open space and the strength of the muscle. Alex watched the Hawk, interested in the remnants of the country this once was. More then buildings or flags, this living being was a representation of the past.

Suddenly, the hawk ducked it's wings against it's body and dropped, Alex, captivated by the animals abilities, watched as it descended. Almost the instant Alex registered the dive, the Hawk was ground level, claws tightly gripping another animal, he could see the struggle but nothing in the way of detail. Unexpectedly, Alex found he couldn't register the world around him for second. All he knew was that his stomach and heart and switched with each other. Then, Suddenly, he was lying on his side. Blinking, Alex looked up, trying to figure out why he was lying on his side. Above him, not more then five or so feet, was the edge of the mountain he had been bird watching from. Alex knew that he must have taken an unconscious step towards the edge and gone over. The fact that he didn't plummet to his death was more luck then design. "I don't get what's wrong with me today" he muttered to himself pushing himself to his hands and knees. Alex paused, the fingers of his left hand brushing against something solid but flexible. Curious, Alex looked at his hand, using it as a marker as he didn't know what he was looking for. There, growing three inches out of the ground, was the most beautiful Crimson Bell he had ever seen. Naturally, it was also the first Crimson Bell he'd ever seen. Alex blinked, arranging himself into a sitting position as he studied the flower before him. Lifting his eye line just a little, Alex got the second surprise of his life. Arrayed before him, no where near as many as the white counter part above, where clusters of Crimson Bells. Arranged in three's, the one closest to Alex was the only single one he could see, the Bell-like flowers spread across the ledge like a sea of brown interspersed with crimson to make it stand out. Never before today had he ever had this much luck. To fall through a gap and find the White Bell was one thing, to fall off the edge of a mountain ridge and find the White Bells Twin was something that had never been done before. On top of that, some how Alex had managed to avoid landing on the priceless flowers, Even though the only space free was a small ring in the centre of the ridge.

Though they where created together, the two flowers where never recorded as growing within easy reach of each other before. From what Alex had understood from History, the White and Crimson bell's had been created with specific criteria in mind. Neither one was supposed to be able to survive in close proximity to the other, adding even more value to today's find. Alex wasn't sure what to make of it, he couldn't have been the first person to come this far out, surly. People had to have come out this far when they where rebuilding. Yet, Alex had never even heard of this place before, the site of the field trip; sure. But this place? He'd found it completely by accident. He didn't think that this was something that was all that important, after all it was impossible that this area had remained undiscovered. Thinking about it, Alex came to the conclusion that the site was some kind of preservation, a place that was left alone for the sole purpose of allowing this rare flower to bloom in the wild. That made sense, but, there should have been some kind of sign, or something, to tell people that they where on a reservation and not to anything. Didn't understand why no one had said anything about the site. Had they come in through an unknown back way? Where they supposed to be flown in? That was a possibility since they may not have known about the crack. If that was the case then, maybe, this was a preservation site and they where trespassing on government land. With that thought, Alex gently picked the Crimson Flower, as proof that he'd found it, at least, and stood.

Now that he was standing, Alex was within reach of the edge, it wouldn't take much for him to pull himself up. Thankful he wouldn't have to climb up to the ledge it self, Alex reached up and grabbed the edge with one hand, gently placed the flower in between his lips and gripped the edge with other hand. Inhaling through his nose, Alex pulled himself up, instinctively holding his breath as he lifted himself. For a second his feet dangled uselessly, trying to find purchase. Finally getting his feet against the wall, Alex pushed with his feet and pulled with his hands. Hoisting himself up Alex stretched out his hands, digging them in the earth as he sort purchase. Breathing out, around the flower, Alex grunted as he crawled further onto the flat plain. Once all the way up, Alex took the flower from his mouth with a shaking right hand, turned, and flopped onto his back.

* * *

The checks came back positive, telling her that the Gundam was working within the set parameters. She had spent much of her time, since receiving this machine, in the simulator, trying to master the controls of this beast. Though it didn't appear any different to any other Gundam mobile suit, a beast was exactly what it was. She had gone over the specs of the machine in minuscule detail. She'd never had a machine with this kind of power before.

Fury Gundam didn't have much more then the basic weapons, but, the power output had been pushed up by at least forty percent, the speed and manoeuvrability of the machine, built to operate in the atmosphere, was at least fifteen percent higher then any other Gundam even in space, making this machine the best the Olympion military had to offer.

Despite the uniqueness of the machine, the red shoulder pad like armour, the easy-reach waist mounted Beam rifle, the compartment stored beam sabres, the menacing head design and the blade like shield; the physical design of the mobile suit's cockpit was very much the same as any other cockpit. Over the years there had been many attempts at changing the cockpits design, however, it was discovered that the most effective way to utilise space was the original design based on the fighter plane cockpit. Though confined, this design allowed for both the maximum amount of comfort, there was no stretching or other kinds of mobility restriction that might slow down combat performance; and there was enough room to fit all the controls into the cockpit. Advancements in computers had resulted in many of the smaller details, such as targeting and certain manoeuvres, being picked up, or aided, by the computers. This decreased the necessity to have so many buttons and switches in the cockpit of the machine, opening up room for other equipment, such as emergency kits.

This machine was built to personify the feelings of those that had lost there loved ones back in AE one fifteen, nearly two years ago. It had been a horror r that would not be soon forgotten, this machine was going to make sure that the Brianon people felt the pain of loss too. After all, it was they who had attacked, unprovoked. No they would have to deal with the consequences of there actions. It was the fury's job to make that happen.

Although the Olympion mobile suit designers almost religiously designed mobile suits to transform into fighter plane like mobile armours, the better to manoeuvre in the air and space; the fury had not been designed or built with such a capability in mind. The decision to keep the mobile suit in one form was an important one, the designers had no way of knowing how a machine like this would handle transformations since it was able to move at four times the speed of a Gul. They weren't sure if the mobile suit's frame could handle it and, there for, didn't do it.

The basic control set up was the same as with the Gul, the mass produced mobile suit. There where two control levers, a right and a left. These levers where mounted on the arms of the chairs, easily within reach and comfortable to hold, even for long periods. The levers themselves controlled the legs of the mobile suit, if the levers where pushed away from the pilot, the mobile suit would walk forward. Pulling back made the mobile suit retreat. Pulling the right lever to the right, made the head of the robot turn right. Pulling the left hand lever to the left, made the head turn left. Arrayed on the levers, more specifically, where the forefinger naturally rests; where the thumb naturally rests, and, on the end of the lever, where five buttons. Each button served multiple functions.

However, when the combat profile, a software package that does various things to make piloting a mobile suit much easer then it would be without it. This profile monitors the space surrounding the mobile suit for hostiles and alerts the pilot to there presence, particularly if they fire a weapon of some description. It also targets the enemy that are closest to the mobile suit, prioritising the targets based on distance, weaponry and performance capability. The program also takes over from the pilot in controlling the legs, freeing up the levers to control the arms. Stored within the program is a data base that is updated every day, that tracks the mobile suits deployed by the Olympion forces. This data base also includes any Allies that are not apart of the military themselves, mercenaries and such, that have joined the fight and brought there own equipment with them. The package also handles fist fighting, allowing the mobile suit to perform a sequence of unarmed combat, should the weapons ever be removed from the machines grasp in the field. This Unarmed combat profile only requires the repeated pressing of a single button. With each press of the button, the mobile suit will perform a different kind of punch, based on distance, angle, and position. There where also several alarms and alerts for various instances.

If this mobile suit was successful in the field the ministry of defence leadership said they may use the Fury as the prototype for the next wave of mass produced mobile suits. It was no secret that many of them, being older, where a little reluctant to step away from the tried and trued systems they had used in there youth, much of the current m.o.d leadership was made up of former mobile suit pilots. However they did recognise the need for change and so wanted to give the project a fair chance and had assigned her, there best mobile suit pilot, to the project simply because no one could get as much out of a mobile suit as she could. Still, this mission made her uneasy, she had fought many successful space battles with this machine, partly to gather actual combat data that could be used in the completion of the next mobile suit, while also seeking to help her fellow solders with the war effort. The machine had yet to face a Gundam, but, she had been very successful when going against the enemies mass produced mobile armours. With her recent success record only improving her already famous name, the colonel shuddered to think what they would expect from her in the future. One thing that did seem to be happening, especially lately, was the other soldiers where whispering about her, telling stories when they thought she couldn't her them. It had even come to her attention that they had given her a nick name. The Gundam Queen. It sounded too much like 'The Bloody Princess' to her, but, if the solders rallied behind it, who was she to complain?

Pressing her shoulders deeper into the back rest of the chair, determined to focus on the task not rumours and speculation. Her hands stretched out, fingers curling one after the other, tightening her grip around the controls. She didn't have long left to wait, now. While her hands rested easily on the controls, her finger and thumb naturally resting on the buttons, the colonel scanned the cockpit's Dashboard. The 'dashboard' offered her readouts on her mobile suits functionality.

Covering the largest part of the board was a partial spiral made up of dull coloured lines, every few lines the colour would change, and the length of the line would get bigger. This was the battery indicator, there to inform the pilot how much energy they had. The format for the indicator hadn't been changed since the use of compact battery systems became standardised.

Inside the semi-spiral was a circle with three zeros in it, this was the speedometer, it translated the thrust into numbers, letting the pilot know how fast they where going at any time. To the left of the speedometer was a wire out line of Fury, this was the damage assessment viewer. If something went wrong with the machine, the viewer would inform the pilot of the point of origin for the malfunction, or damage, giving the Tech-crew a place to start looking. To the right of the speedometer was a column. This column has been divided into rectangular blocks. This is the speed indicator, when the speed is increased, or, deceased this column lights up, indicating how much of the mobile suits maximum speed is being used. Because of the restrictions of space on the dashboard, the column went twelve blacks high.

In the centre of the screen was a three dimensional image of a home plug socket, in the plug socket was a plug, the word 'Connected' underneath. This was some smarmy bastards way of informing the pilot that the mobile suit was connected to the ships power. Directly beneath the word 'connected' was a gap then vertical panel. On this vertical panel was three buttons, one activated the beam generator, the device that powered the mobile suits beam weapons, the second unlocked the safety to the weapons and the third activated the Phase shift armour. The Phase shift Armour system reduces damage from all forms of physical attack. However it was incredibly draining on the battery and couldn't protect against the beam weapons that had become standardised since there conception twenty years previously. Below that was a series of numbered buttons ranging from one to nine. This was so that numerical pass codes could be assigned to protect the mobile suit when it was deactivated, no one could operate the machine unless they had this code. Between the 'dash board' and the vertical panel was a small gap, inside this gap was a direct interface keyboard, allowing the operating system to be tweaked directly, without having to cart computers and disks all over the place, not to mention the security risks carrying sensitive data on disks can entail.

"All systems green, colonel Armitage." The girl on the other end of her open com, said. She was small,whether that was because of her age or simply genetics the pilot didn't know. She was a pretty girl, a little on the innocent side, a naive expression always seemed to be on her face, her wide golden eyes adding to the impression that she was too innocent to be a soldier. Her brown hair was cut down into the standard military cut, making her appear to be a boy from behind. The girl wore the standard uniform for non-combatants: a Sleeveless, calf-length black waist coat, with a white shirt beneath it. Although the pilot couldn't see it, she knew that the young soldier was wearing black pants with black boots, a red belt hidden beneath the waistcoat and a pair of white gloves, although the gloves where optional when in field conditions. Leaning forward Colonel Armitage pressed the generator button " Roger that. Going live" she said. To prevent accidents when charging or launching a mobile suit safeties where put in place that needed to be manually disengaged, 'Going live' was the term used when the generator was being activated. "Roger that." Her Control officer said, it was the control officers who acted as the link between the ship and the mobile suits in the field, providing information, orders, and equipment when necessary.

On the screen to the colonels left, a clock was monitoring the time, letting her know how long she had before the mission would begin. Looking at the clock, she now knew that she had two minutes and thirty seconds to go. Two minutes of nothing, exhaling, Armitage closed her eyes, feeling the movement of the ship on the surface of the ocean. She really didn't want to be here, on this ship full of people she didn't know and only knew her by stories they'd heard. On the earth, with it's gravity pulling at her feet and the harsh memories of the past, clawing at her every moment. She wanted this to be over with. She wanted to be back in outer space. Back in familiar territory, back on her ship, _the Sentinel_. Still, as much as Armitage wished not to be here, it was her duty as a soldier to get the mission done. "All right Colonel, where at the drop zone now" said a male voice, causing the woman to open her eyes and look at the small screen on her left, checking the time until the mission starts. Just over a minute left. Turning back to the screen she saw the face of the ships Captain, a young man, perhaps twenty five, who'd been made older by his command. His expression was one of disguised hatred.

Those that had been fighting on the earth developed territorial tendencies. The crew of Armitage's current escort, a group of four sea-ships, was no exception to this. It was obvious that he didn't want to be away from his normal duties, nor did he want to be deep in enemy territory with out a larger fleet. They where all still dealing with the loss of one of the ships that had been under his command. The five ships had managed to sneak into enemy territory and where making good time when, out of the blue, they where attacked by a group of pirate ships, probably thinking they where part of the Brianon fleet. One of there ships had been hit pretty hard in that battle, ending up being sunk. On top of that, three of there mobile suits where damaged and the restrictive size of the ships meant they didn't have the parts they needed to repair the machines. Even after several hours of searching they had been unable to find a single survivor. In the end, with the search incomplete they had to radio the location of the sunken ship to the nearest friendly base and return to the mission. A loss of life, especially when you didn't know why the life had been lost in the first place, was often hard to take, Armitage had gone through the same thing on many occasions. Death never became easer to take.

Before the war had broken out, the only fleet that the Olympion forces had where the ones they commissioned for use in space. At the beginning of the war, the initial drops had been relatively easy, how ever it was quickly apparent that moving troops between battle fields as the war shifted territories was an unexpected difficulty. Resourceful soldiers solved the problem by stealing transport, whether ground, air, or water based. Giving the Olympion forces the opportunity to copy the technology. Until the machines could be built, however, the stolen vehicles were put into service to fill the gap as needed. With so much demand on the limited resources the Olympion forces had managed to get together, the supplies from there home of limited use in the atmosphere of the planet, there was a high demand for the vessels and vehicles that they had. It must be difficult to be in such high demand that everything seemed to require attention and not have the numbers to fulfil the need. Then, out of the blue, someone turns up and a fleet of ships had to drop everything and play escort to one person and there new toy. It would certainly have pissed Armitage off if she'd been given this duty, especially if she was in the middle of a campaign to take an important enemy base, one that could provide much needed equipment to repair the ships they had. "colonel?" asked the captain, catching the woman's attention.

"I can't tell you what my mission is, you know that, Captain" she said, anticipating the question she was about to receive, as she re-checked the release system for the power cable, it was often the small things that brought catastrophe, because they where often ignored as irrelevant. "I know that" he said, the lack of anger caught the woman's attention "I just want to know" Armitage stared at him, surprised by the look on his face, naked hope. "Then, what is it?" Armitage asked, she had expected a question on the details of her assignment, but, he seemed to understand the way things had to be, for the time being.

"I was just wondering, is this mission worth it?" he asked, his face serious but, also, hopeful. Armitage understood what he was asking with the simply phrased question; he was hoping that, maybe, his people hadn't died in vain, that this was something so important that it was worth a hundred and fifty seven lives. And three wounded pilots that would likely end up crippled. "More then worth it" she said, truthfully, if they failed, then the enemy would gain a powerful weapon that could change the tide of the war. The Captain nodded and disappeared from the screen, replaced by the young control officer. "Final Check" the girl said, immediately upon returning to the screen.

"Roger that" the woman returned, glancing at the screen above the plate with buttons. As she watched, each piece of Fury's outline flashed white, then changed to green. Working up from the feet, the final systems check ran through it's program, looking for any faults in the operating system as well as mechanical problems. With each flash of green Armitage felt her heart beat a little faster, her adrenalin rising with each passing second. This would be her first battle on the surface of the planet earth. She was itching to see how Fury would perform under gravity conditions. The O.S had been modified based on the data from other machines. Though there was no guarantee, Armitage was confident that the o.s would work. The people who had worked on it had been experts in there field, they had said it would work, she had no reason not to believe them. "System check, complete, All systems functioning. No problems detected. No viruses or corruptions detected. Moving mobile suit to launch station." the young control officer's voice rang through the cockpit, it was clear that the girl knew her job, even though she appeared so very young. Despite her adrenalin rush at what was to come, Armitage was a little sad by the thought that this girl, and many like her, had been through so much already. It was visible in the eyes, the haunted look that they tried to hide. Armitage knew, though, how to spot it, knew where to look for the signs. Kids, nothing more, forced to fight by the savage hand that had been dealt there country.

Armitage felt the cage stop. The cage system had been developed by the Brianon military to transport mobile suits in any terrain. The system consisted of a bed that the mobile suit stood against, and a series of restraints to keep the mobile suit from falling. The cage secured the mobile suit by enfolding the arms, upper chest and legs, leaving only the cockpit accessible to the pilots. Their where also a set of clamps for the feet and legs. The cage system was attached to tracks that take the mobile suits to the launch platforms, or the catapult, depending on the ship. The clamps attached to the feet performed two functions, if the system used is connected to a catapult, the clamps become the bed that launches the machine from the ship. If, however, the ship has launch plat forms, hanger like rooms where the mobile suits launch under there own power, then the clamps, released at the final moment, become a launch bed. The cage also operated as a recharge rack for the mobile suites. This complete system was an excellent idea and one of the many things that where being implemented by the Olympion military. Her Cage, though had been adjusted slightly to make way for the newer, slightly bigger then normal flight pack that had been attached to the back. "Docking complete. Releasing restraints" This time the young girls voice came over the tannoy system as mentioned restraints opened. "Releasing supply cable." the girl said a few seconds later. Armitage looked down at the image of the plug and watched as the image flashed twice and disappeared. Immediately the spiral lines lit up, indicting that the system was working under it's own power. "Independence, achieved" Armitage told her officer.

"Roger" said the girl, her professional demeanour a strange comfort to the older pilot. "Attaching Shield." the girl informed, as a set of metallic arms came out of ports built into the wall and ceiling while a hatch opened next to Fury's right arm. The hands reached into the opening and pulled out a red shield that curved into a point. The hands pulled the shield from it's place on the shelf and, changing it's position so the point was directed at the feet, the hands lowered the shield into reach of the mobile suit. With practised ease, born from the many hours in the simulator, Armitage grasped the shield, watching through the monitor as the hands released the shield. "Shield, Attached" she informed the Officer. Armitage knew that, while she was reaching for the shield, the cage had finished releasing her and pulled back, just enough to keep out of the way in preparation for the launch. "Roger" the girl responded, tapping away at the keyboard in front of her. While she couldn't see the keys from her monitor, Armitage could see the the young girls slim shoulders moving as she rapidly moved her hands over the keyboard. "Checking launch path" the girl said, her eyes looking at a monitor next to the one connecting them. "Launch path: clear. You are a go, Fury" the young woman told her. "Roger that." she said, dropping both feet onto the peddles, pushing them to the floor. The thrusters where activated, but, the power was set too low to move the mobile suit. "Ali Armitage, Launching!" the pilot declared. Pressing on the right hand left point.

Seconds later, Armitage felt the sudden shock of rapidly leaving the ground that was so instinctive to humans. Her body pressed back into the seat as two powerful forces clashed. Experience kicked in, banishing the fear that had welled up. With casual ease, borne from years of experience, Armitage pulled back on the control sticks, levelling off. Immediately, the two forces disappeared, allowing her to move more freely. For a second, Armitage glanced at the control stick, seeing the buttons set up in there usual square turned on it's side configuration, Armitage felt much better. This was a ritual she did, just after taking off, stemming from her years as a nervous cadet. Pressing down on the button at the point closest to the screen on the right, with her right thumb, Armitage held the button until the monitor told her she was at half speed. With the speed set, the pilot pulled the right control stick back while pushing the left stick forwards, initiating a banking turn. Heading towards the closest land mass; a small beach isolated by a large cliff face.

From up here, Armitage could see the wild lands spread out in front of her, even though she couldn't see any kind of detail, yet. The head mounted cameras, built into the eyes of the Gundam, provided real-time information directly to the cockpit, as if the pilot was seeing everything with there own eyes. In addition to this, Fury had a standard zoom function, only up to ten times that of normal, where her previous Gundam had been a hyper long range sniper type machine, with a zoom of one hundred and fifty times normal. There was several other special imaging types that where built into the machine, but those where standard to all units.

This area had been nothing but a waste land of rock and ash during the chaos wars but, now, there was lush greenery and life everywhere. Armitage didn't much care for such things, it was just another battle field to her. The beauty of the place didn't mean anything in the long run.

As well as the monitors on her left and right side, showing her the layout of the area around her, she had the main monitor, that showed her everything through the eyes of the Gundam and above those was a set of four, smaller monitors. Each one had a differing function. The one on the furthest left showed radar detection, the one next to it showed a radar like function for the mobile suit, the one next to that showed a map in real time; the final monitor showed the same map with large red line running through it. This was the route that her target was supposed to take. If lintel had been accurate, she'd be able to intercept her target up ahead. However, her information had been vague on the estimated time the enemy would cross this area, for all she knew they could have already been past an hour ago. However, Armitage had been told that they would be coming from Lion Gates military base. This was where the new mobile suits where tested before they went into the field. This gave her something to go by. All she had to do was start at the base and work from there.

* * *

Alex Looked out over the ridge of the cliff, staring at the beautiful wild life. This enclosed area, in front of him, was full of interesting animals and plants to investigate. He'd longed to go down into there, unfortunately, after showing the others the crimson bell he'd found, Alex had not been allowed to wander off on his own any more. Ashley had said that he was going to get himself into trouble if he didn't stay with the group. The young man could understand that but, some times, going it alone was the only way to get anything done. It wasn't just in actions either it was also in thought, as well. If people didn't get curious about things no one would ever find anything out, even if it wasn't exactly a thought that was acknowledged by other people. However, Ashley was in charge, responsible not only for Alex's safety but the safety of the entire group. Out of respect, Alex had kept himself in view at all times. Though he didn't get involved in much of the discussion. Instead, he'd spent most of his time sketching the flowers around him, with the intent of replicating them, much neater, for the rest of the group, to add to the reports. Then, with Ashley watching out for him, Alex went and sketched the Crimson bell field he'd found.

This was a beautiful area and it would be a waste to leave the place without taking something lasting from it. Alex was slightly worried, though, that this area wasn't known, that meant that going back and talking about it would bring it to peoples attention. People would investigate, either trying to prove them liars or simply curious to see the beauty for themselves. Either way, people would start traipsing around the area, leaving there mark and, eventually killing off the very planets that brought them to the area in the first place. This area was beautiful and should be shared with others, but it had to be restricted to preserve the beauty. "This place is beautiful" sighed Melanie, drawing everyone's attention "I wish I could stay here, forever" she said, sounding regretful.

"I know what you mean" said the girl Alex had thought was called Kirsty, it turned out that her name was Clara. "This place is so perfect"

"To bad it won't last forever" said Eric, the fourth member of Ashley's original group.

"Sure it could," Said Alex, turning to face the group with his hands in his pockets "If we don't pick all the flowers."

"Not what I meant" said Eric. Eric wasn't a bad guy, he didn't go looking for trouble and he didn't go picking on the weaker kids either, but, he didn't exactly make friends easy either. "I meant we'll have to go home soon" he observed. Everyone, suddenly, looked downcast. No one had thought to bring a camera since they had been here many times before, it was an area with a lot of history.

Apparently, the horseshoe was the final resting place of the pilot Steven Moore. Who died at the age of eighty five, surrounded by his family. Over the cause of there lives the children that lived in the town must have visited the horseshoe shaped enclosure once every year since starting school. By the time they where ten, the place had lost it's appeal through simple repetition.

"Going to regret this." said Alex reaching for his bag. "But if you bunch together I'll draw you." they all looked at each other.

"You sure?" Asked Clara, her face screwed into slight concern "it could take awhile to do something like that" she said.

"I'll do a quick sketch now, then do the real drawing when I get home tonight." he said, shrugging. He had been planning on drawing tonight any way, why not do a picture with some meaning attached to it? All he ever really did was useless doodles, occasionally some one would ask him to do a particular drawing of something, but, most of the time he was simply doodling whatever came to mind. His mum had said that he should consider becoming a professional, but, Alex wasn't so sure, he enjoyed drawing but he liked to draw at his own pace, when he felt like doing it. He didn't think he could handle the deadlines that where imposed on professional artists.

While the others sorted themselves out into some kind of order, Alex pulled his drawing pad from his bag with one hand and pulling pencil case out of his bag with the other. Based on the graphics tablet used with personal computers, the drawing pad had been created as an extension to the tablet, it's purpose was to allow people to draw like they would when using a computer, were ever they happened to be at the time. The machine was ten point three inches wide and thirteen point seventeen inches high with four inches in thickness. The screen was exactly A-four size. The computer had been designed for only one program, that loads from the moment it is switch on. It was a simple program that allowed you to draw, change the size, only smaller, and the added option to change the format of the drawing, Portrait or landscape. As well as that the program offers a print function that can be hooked up to any printer. With the much newer versions the drawing program has gotten bigger so it can offer more functions, and full-fill a wider range of drawing related tasks. This particular Pad had belonged to Alex for a number of years now and, as such, didn't have the features the newer ones possessed. He still had to load his pictures in to a Personal Computer to colour and print the pictures he liked. Alex didn't mind though, his mother was an internal courier for one of the big corporations and, as such, didn't make the kind of money necessary to buy a newer pad. Alex left his bag on the floor, still open and wandered to a nearby flat rock, careful not to step on any of the flowers in his path. Making himself comfortable on the rock, Alex rested the drawing pad comfortably on his lap. Pulling a stylus from his case, and dumping the case carelessly on the floor, Alex looked up. Every one simply stood there, a collection of people that had been put together, they weren't friends but they weren't enemies either. They didn't know what to make of each other, really. "Okay guys, lets see a smile" he said, as he got to work.

* * *

Armitage had been fortunate, she had quickly spotted the reported route that the enemy would be taking, even better was that there had been no tracks, indicating that the route hadn't been used. Having established a place for ambush, Armitage made her way back to her mobile suit. Running onto her Gundams palm, down the forearm and halfway up the bicep of the unit, Armitage hopped into the chair and began the system boot up. Keying in the activation code, Armitage watched the hatch close and the main screen align it's self in front of her. The various screens lit up with the information they were designed to carry, the battery monitor lit up first, the spiral instantly lighting up to maximum power. Next came the wireframe of the Gundam, instantly flashing green. Next came the monitors, each one adding day light to the otherwise dark cockpit. Within seconds she was ready to move.

Armitage pressed the down point button on her right hand control lever, lifted the unit into the air. Making a banking turn, Armitage heading towards her selected ambush point. Unexpectedly, the warning alarm blared, drawing her attention to the collection of enemy vehicles that where coming down the trail. Pressing down on the left point button on the right lever, Armitage inched the control lever forward, zooming in on the convoy as best as the standard zoom function would allow. Armitage sighed, the zoom was really weak on this, compared to her other mobile suit, the hawk eye, but it was enough and she took stock of her enemy. There where five trucks, each one carrying a cloth covered mobile suit, the way the cloth conformed to the shape made it obvious. Armitage recalled that the intelligence they had gathered indicated that only one mobile suit had been made. Armitage could only conclude that the Brianon forces had set up the other trucks as decoys, hoping that any ambush would pick the wrong truck and end up getting a surprise. There was at least four more mobile suits to contend with, then. On either side of the trucks where armoured vehicles used by the ground forces to move the mobile suits over land. That added another forty eight mobile suits, plus the two armoured vehicles themselves. Fifty two mobile suits, plus two crafts, this would be difficult.

These armoured vehicles, called Mobile Armed Command Centres, also referred to as Mac-c's where ship sized, tank like vehicles. One of the chief problems with the early mobile suits was that they where too heavy to move quickly. Though they where far more manoeuvrable then the tank, the only real counter part the mobile suit ever had. Efforts where made to make mobile suits lighter, to improve performance. Smaller, and ultimately lighter, batteries were one such way that this was done, along with higher grade, newer metals that could withstand a larger scale beating. However, with a compact battery there was a limit to how long a mobile suit could last on the battle field. With battleships, both in space and on the sea, that would be fine since they only had to return to the assigned ship, or another friendly ship if the assigned ship had been sunk, where they could be re-charged and repaired. However, on land; bases where often miles from the front lines, so mobile suits where stuck with a limited amount of power for a limited amount of time and, with no means of re-powering the suit, the pilots had no means of getting back to base on there own. Many designers looked at the possibilities of using a nuclear reactor as a source of near eternal power. These ideas never came to fruition because of the danger of radiation. If every mobile suit had such a battery, then radiation would, inevitably, get into the local area, destroying it and causing sickness and death in there very own people. If enough of the machines where destroyed, then the world would become uninhabitable.

The Mac-c was the answer to this problem. Built to hold twenty four mobile suits, Six teams of four, the spare parts needed to repair mobile suits, as well as all the facilities that where necessary for a soldiers survival on the battle field. Mac-c's weren't just glorified basses, they where armed to the teeth, cannons, gatling guns, missile launchers and a host of beam weapons that where too powerful for a mobile suit to carry. The mac-c's also had thick armour and the reliable tank treads to help it get over and around many of the obstacles.

Huffing a breath, Armitage palmed her helmet with her left hand, expertly sliding it over her head. She hadn't expected them to arrive so soon, she'd thought that she would have to lie in wait for a few hours, shut down her machine to conserve battery power, she hadn't expected them to turn up just as she was lifting off. The first thing she had to do, was take out the mac-c's, they where powerhouses that could seriously hamper her mission if they where allowed to get in her way. Fortunately, a captured Mac-c revealed the location of the generator that powers the weapons and computers.

Tapping the button at the up 'point' on the right hand control lever, Armitage activated the mobile suits pre-programmed weapon draw response. Out side Fury, obeyed the command and reached down to it's waist, pulling free the beam rifle. While, inside the cockpit, the Combat Profile immediately started up, tracking the hostile units in relation to the flight of the Gundam . At the same time, the operating system took over the mobile suits flight, continuing the course set by the pilot. This freed up the control sticks, usually used to control the mobile suit, to be used to control the arms. Leaning forward, Armitage pressed both the safety control button and the Phase shift control button. Outside, the mobile suit changed from a dull grey to a blood red. Leaning back, Armitage pulled back on the left lever while, at the same time, pushing forward with the right, banking the mobile suit to the left. Intent on taking both targets at the same time, Armitage Pulled back on both control levers at the same time, sending the mobile suit into a dive.

Beam rifle in hand, Armitage pushed the right hand control lever forward, making the mobile suits arm stretch out in front of it. Pointing the rifle at the first Mac-c, the computer took over, taking the fact that the rifle was being pointed at the mac-c to indicate that it was the target, the computer locked onto the mobile fortress in general, so that she would get a hit if she pulled the trigger. Even with the general lock on, the computer kept moving a smaller cross hair over the screen, locking on to the closet weapon, then moving on to the next one. The Mac-cs where big vehicles, hitting one wasn't difficult, hitting one in the right place to cripple them, that was harder to do. Unfortunately, Fury didn't have the power to destroy a Mac-c in one shot and she didn't have the required heavy cannon either. All she had was the mobile suits most basic weapons. The cross hair locked onto the generator, the little square comprised of corners pointed inwards, drew tighter around a certain area, and changed to red. Knowing this was where the mobile fortresses power supply was located, Armitage pulled the right hand control sticks fore finger trigger and a flash of crimson light erupted from the barrel of the rifle, slicing through the air to hit the Mac-c square in the side. The side exploded, shards of metal arcing through the air in every direction, becoming deadly projectiles in there own right. The crimson beam ate it's way through the exposed opening, breaching armour, wiring and, within seconds, burrowed into the interior of the vehicle. The fortress suddenly ground to a stop, it's power gone. A giant black cloud billowed from the wounded fortress like a spirit leaving the body. A large piece of the armour the fortress used for protection, drove into the ground, blocking the trucks from making there escape. The trucks all skidded, coming to a complete stop and almost ploughing in to each other's back side. The cloud of smoke added to the confusion, making it difficult to know what was going on.

Even before the cloud of smoke had covered the crimson Gundam, Armitage had activated the mobile suits infra-red spectrum, with a double tap of the right levers 'right point'. Fury had already moved on, once again using the beam rifle to determine the next target, the cloud providing just enough confusion for the Gundam's targeting system to get its lock. Without reducing speed, Armitage fired as she passed, crippling the support vehicle entirely. Armitage tapped the end button on the left hand control lever, knowing that the thrusters exhausts would rotate to point forward, forcing all the power into upward momentum, she needed hight to see what the enemy would do next. The most obvious thing was for the fortresses to deploy whatever mobile suits they had and protect the convoy. With any luck they would surround the new weapon, thus letting her know which was real and which was the decoy. Double Tapping the Middle trigger, reduced the power to the thrusters so that the machine would hover. Now that the cloud was disappearing, Armitage held down the right point button on the right hand lever, making the mobile suit switch from infra red to telescopic. Letting go of the button, returning the screen to normal, Armitage watched her main screen intently, waiting for the mobile suits to indicate her target.

A warning alert had Armitage glancing at her right hand screen, a beam of orange light was coming at her. Armitage tapped the left hand end button, reversing the mobile suits course, the mobile suit moving backwards, just enough to avoid the beam. Armitage watched the beam slice paced her, filling the forward screen in it's entirety with the coloured column of death.

The combat profile automatically tracked the shot back to the one responsible, recognising the shooter as the largest threat. Below her and to the left, rising quickly towards her, was a Pendragon, raised beam rifle still smoking. The Pendragons where the Brianons mobile suit force, the current mass produced model, having replaced the ten year old Duke three years prior. From what she could remember from her debriefings, the Pendragon had some new form of armour that could stand against physical attacks. It was supposed to be lighter then the previous armour but, also stronger. As far as Armitage was concerned, the point was moot. It had been moot since the development of the beam technology by the Tri-jade Ten years ago.

The armour that made up the Pendragons body had been moulded to the frame as completely as possible, leaving only the barest gap necessary so the machine could move. The arms, head, legs, waist and hips where a gleaming pure white. The torso, chest, and feet where all red. The glowing red, visor like eyes transmitted the hate the pilot was feeling quite well. Mounted onto the back of the unit was some kind of pack with four wings sticking out horizontal, in comparison to the mobile suit. The majority of the pack to made up of four turbine like cylinders. This was the reason the mobile suit could fly. "Well, then, let's see how good you people really are." she muttered to herself. Tapping the right hand end button, setting the mobile suit to move forward, Armitage held down the left end button, circling the Gundam to face the Pendragon. Armitage tapped the left hand control sticks left point button, giving Fury the command to dive at the mobile suit. The Pendragon opened fire, a quick tap of the left hand control sticks 'up point' button had the crimson machine lifting it's shield to block the attacks. The Gundam's beam rifle coming up to fire from the hip, beneath the boundary of the shield. The shots hit their mark, perforating the mobile suit, making it shudder with the violent impacts before it toppled backwards and dropped to the earth. Banking to the right, Fury cut off the thrusters, dropping to the ground. Just before the Gundam hit the floor, Armitage tapped the left point button on the left hand lever, the mobile suit responded to the command by lowering into one kneed crouching position, lessening the shock of the fall. Tapping the left point button again, Armitage flexed her finger while the mobile suit rose to stand. She could recall a time, when she had been a cadet, when performing this manoeuvre made her feel nausea The smooth way in which the screen panned while rising had given her a sense of motion sickness that she had never gotten at any other time. Right now, she was very glad that she had gotten over it.

Mobile suits piled from the fortresses, opening fire on Fury as they jumped to the ground. Unlike the first machine, these machines didn't have the flight packs mounted, that was good, they were ground bound. Fury stayed on course, using the left control stick to manually block the attacks that could damage the machine, letting the others stream harmlessly past her. Without breaking stride, upon reaching the truck, Armitage tapped the left hand control sticks middle trigger, kicking the vehicle into the crowed of mobile suits; while they worked to get themselves into a defensive formation. A single shot to the fuel tank and the truck became an explosive, detonating in the heart of the Pendragon force. Those closest to the blast were thrown into their compatriots, causing confusion among those directly behind.

Tapping the right hand 'up point', Armitage waited a split second, while Gundam holstered the beam rifle, then double tapped the up point button. At the same time Armitage pulled the forefinger trigger in, activating the beam sabre that the Gundam was drawing from a compartment built into the small of the back. Armitage tapped the right hand control sticks down point button, engaging the boosters, propelling Fury across at the enemy cluster. The Gundam pulled back it's right arm, in response it the clockwise rotation of the right hand control stick. Rotating the left stick clockwise, Armitage prepared the Gundam as it entered the confusion, shield first.

Immediately, the group behind the victims of the explosion opened fire, creating a barrage. With careful timing, Armitage manoeuvred the shield into the path of the streams that could cause damage to the unit. Armitage rotated the right control back, tilting the stick upwards, then rotated it forwards tilting the lever downwards. The beam sabre cut the nearest Pendragon lengthwise in half, killing the pilot before they even knew what had hit them. With the first Pendragon on the floor, Armitage could see a cluster of five mobile suits, each tightly packed next to each other. Pulling back with the right control stick, Armitage rotated the lever. From the corner of her eye, Armitage watched as the Gundams crimson arm, a red coloured column of beam particles horizontally sweeping into her field of vision, cutting the mobile suit across the middle. For the first time, Fury touched down, Armitage knew that the power to the booster would be more of a hindrance now that the Gundam was confined. Holding down the up point button on the left hand control stick, waiting while the screens changed with the movements of the Gundam as it lowered itself into a partial bend, releasing the button Armitage pressed the middle trigger. The crimson Gundam responded by jumping at the mobile suits, straightening up as it went.

Now deep among the enemy, the Gundam had a bigger advantage, the Pendragon had to be weary of hitting there comrades, while Fury was free to cut and shoot anything that moved. Aggressively ramming the right control stick forward, driving the beam sabre into to the chest of a Pendragon, took out yet another enemy. The alarm blared and Armitage turned, to look at the screen on her left, with the tap of the left hand controllers up point button, activating the mobile suits Quick Reaction Defence program, taking three shots on the shield. The Quick Reaction Defence program, was a function that enabled pilots to protect themselves when they would otherwise not be able to. Armitage followed the arrow, indicating where the shots where fired from. Three Pendragons where advancing, thinking they had an opening. The Pendragons rushed forward, eager for the kill. Waiting until the enemy was in range of the beam sabre, Armitage rotated the control stick anti-clockwise, slicing through the impaled Pendragon. The beam sabre came free, hissing through the air for another horizontal slash. Suddenly, a Pendragon surged up, inside the arc of the swing. Fury's arm collided uselessly against the Pendragons shoulder. Armitage pulled the right hand control stick straight back, retracted the arm at the elbow. Tilting the lever down, Armitage tucked the arm by Fury's hip, waiting for the right time to strike. The Pendragons beam sabre was out and coming forward to stab at the chest, both hands wrapped around the handle of the weapon. With a quick jab of her right foot, Armitage took the mobile suit a step towards the Pendragon. At the same time, Armitage tilted the left stick down, lowering the arm. Pushing the left stick forward, Armitage tilted the left stick up, sweeping the shield underarm at the mobile suits torso, driving the point into the cockpit. Armitage held down the left down point button, the Gundam responded by bending it's knees, lowing it's self enough that the beam sabre slid passed the shoulder. The advancing Pendragons kept firing, while spreading out to form a semicircle. Armitage pushed the right lever forward, tilting it up a she had done with the left seconds before. From the hip, the beam sabre lanced in an upward arc, impaling then slicing a Pendragon. Here, the computers Targeting system took over, inverting the blade so that the weapon could reach the enemy. Armitage waisted no time, tilting the right lever down, catching the second unit by surprise with the back swing. Slicing through the neck and stabbing into the mobile suits shoulders, driving the energy weapon into the chest, were the battery was located, Armitage looked around her, trying to find the last of the group. Tapping the right hand trigger, disengaging the beam sabre, Armitage Pulled back on the right stick, simultaneously tilting the lever down. The Gundams arm retracted, lowering to torso hight. Pushing the lever gently forward, the crimson mobile suit placed the handle of the beam sabre against the impaled machine, Palm flat but for he thumb. Tilting the right stick sideways to the right, and tilting the left stick to the left at the same time, the mobile suit Leaned forward. Ramming the both sticks forward as hard as she could, Armitage thrust the dead Pendragon at the last of the three Pendragons, before he could move. Tapping the right trigger, Armitage reactivated the inverted beam sabre. Positioning the arm horizontally, Armitage dug the mobile suits feet into the ground and propelled herself at the two machines, impaling them both in the torso.

Straightening up as the beam sabre was width-drawn, the cockpit's alarm sounded, giving the machine the chance to move. Holding down the right hand levers left point, Armitage watched the screens pan as the head turned. Through the Gundams eyes, Armitage could see that she had three machines coming at her from behind. Knowing that the Beam sabre was now useless, the remaining forces having separated into groups, Armitage tapped the left levers right point button, holstering the deactivated beam sabre, the slide rail clamping system drawing the weapon into the armour, before the armour closed around it. The warning alarm had the crimson mobile suit diving to the left, the beam rifle came around from it's mounting at the small of the back and opened fire, taking an arm off a mobile suit. With a quick dab of both peddles, Fury rotated in the air to land on it's feet. In front of her, crouched behind an abandoned truck, where four mobile suits, including the one that had lost it's arm. From their position they opened fire, sending precise shots at her. Manually intercepting the shots on the shield, with the left hand stick, Armitage pushed forward with the right stick, the Gundam responded by levelling the beam rifle to reciprocate the attack, when the alarm warned her of an attack from above. Jumping back, still Manually intercepting the shots from the mobile suits behind the truck, Armitage alternated between the two thumb triggers, the Gundam dodged between the streams of beam fire in response. The targeting computer told Armitage where the three new shots had come from, before she had even finished her evasive manoeuvres. The first shot had come from above to the right, the second had come from above to her left, the third had come from above and behind her. With a tilt of the right handle, Fury levelled it's rifle and pulled the trigger, impaling one of the mobile suits opposite that was too slow to duck down after the last barrage. Rotating the right stick in a slow clockwise circle, the right arm turning to acquire another target, one of the ones in the air, and tagged it. 'These guys are rookies in the air.' thought Armitage, pressing down on both peddles simultaneously to take to the air herself. With a tap of the up point button on the right hand stick, Armitage committed the Gundam to docking the beam rifle. Tapping the right hand levers left point button and pushing the left tick forwards, at the same time, Armitage increased the speed of the mobile suit to maximum. Weaving between the beam fire with expert taps on the thumb triggers, Armitage had the unit fly straight at one of the Pendragons, raking the beam sabre vertically up the mobile suit, on the way up. Spotting the second flying machine, Fury dropped on it, dividing the mobile suit in half. With the Aerial threat taken care of, Armitage cut the thruster, dropping Fury towards the ground. While dropping, Armitage searched for the closest enemy mobile suit. Rotating the right stick anticlockwise, the mobile suit pulling the arm back, Armitage waited until she was curtain of the kill. Then, she rotated the stick clockwise, swinging the arm horizontally, and pushed the tight stick forward, impaling the one armed mobile suit. Turning, Fury sliced One Arm's mate across the torso. Aware that the weapon was unable to hit the next target, the computer inverted the beam sabre, Armitage pulled back on the Right stick, thrusting the blade back and up. Expecting the Pendragon to fall on the energy blade. Instead, the mobile suit took the beam sabre across it's shield, firing it's beam rifle at the crimson mobile suits upper back. Deactivating the beam sabre, with a quick tap of the right hand forefinger trigger, Armitage held down the left hand levers down point button and, at the same time, tilted the stick down, dropping the mobile suit on it's back to avoid the gun fire. Yet again, the computer span the beam sabres handle, Armitage tilted the right hand stick up while pushed the lever forward. The Gundam thrust up at the mobile suits chest, the beam activating with a tap of the trigger. The Pendragon blocked, opening fire on the Gundam, with quick, clipped, bursts of beam energy. Firing the thrusters, flipping the crimson mobile suit onto all fours, avoiding the barrage. Armitage rotated the left stick raising the shield to block the attacks. At the same time Armitage held down the left hand down point button, the Gundam instantly standing up in response. Activating the thrusters, the machine took to the air, opening fire with the ciws mounted into the Gundams head, roughly were the ears would be on a human. Perforating the rifle, Armitage rotated the right stick anti clockwise, with the stick tilted down. In repose, the Gundam swung the beam sabre in an over head arc, trying to slice the mobile suit in half. The Pendragon stepped back, firing his own ciws into the Gundams shield, while throwing the beam rifle away just before it could explode. Bringing out it's own beam sabre, the Pendragon shifted stances, shield out in front, ready for any attack. Dropping down in front of the Pendragon, Fury surged forward, slashing horizontally at the machines torso. Swinging it's own beam sabre, the Pendragon blocked the beam sabre with it's shield only to be blocked by Fury's shield. Firing the ciws into the shield, Armitage span the mobile suit, slashing the Pendragons exposed back, dropping the mobile suit onto it's front. Without wasting time, Armitage stabbed the mobile suit through the cockpit, killing the pilot.

From the back end of the left hand mac-c's, came a group of five mobile suits. Fury turned to them, raising the shield in anticipation of the attack. Again the warning alarms blared, alerting her to an Ariel attack from behind. Firing the boosters, Swinging round, Armitage saw a group of ten mobile suits crouched behind the right mobile base. Needing the hands to be free, Armitage placed the beam sabre back in it's compartment, weaving between the streaks of lethal energy, Armitage mounted Fury's shield onto the right forearm by threading the arm through the bar used as a handle. The bar retracted, tightening around the mobile suits arm while two poles inserted themselves into two holes to secure the shield to the arm. With the right hand now free, Armitage drew the right hand beam sabre and pulled the beam rifle from it's harness. A quick check on the battery told the pilot that the mobile suit had burned through all but two of the largest bars, coloured green. Plenty of power left. Diving for the ten mobile suits, Fury opened fire, destroying three mobile suits and separating an arm each from two other units, before they even knew she was there. Dropping out of the sky, whipping the active beam sabre in an arc, creating a light trail that bent around the mobile suit. Slicing a Pendragon vertically, Fury twisted round, taking the beam shots across the shield and firing the beam rifle, downing three more machines with expert shots. Diving to the side, Armitage impaled the final three with a single shot that pierced the first at the hip, rose diagonally as it travelled through the mobile suits to leave out of the third mobile suits shoulder. Firing the thrusters, Armitage righted the mobile suit and hurled the machine into the air.

The moment she cleared the Mac-c, however, an impact knocked the mobile suit from the air. Recovering in time to land on her feet, Armitage checked the mobile suit for damage, seeing none, Armitage checked the battery. The power had diminished from one green bar left to having no green bars and four yellow bars missing. The impact must have been a projectile, the Mac-c had gotten there back up generator up and running quicker then she had expected. While they couldn't use beam weapons, they could still use the many projectile based weapons installed. While phase shift rendered the mobile suit invincible to physical attack; bullets and swords for example, the massive drain on the battery, especially at the point of impact, meant that phase shift didn't last forever. It was possible for a mobile suit equipped with phase shift armour to be destroyed by physical attacks, bullets or a sword, if the mobile suit is hit enough times with physical attacks to drain the battery. Since her power had dropped so fast, Armitage reasoned, that had to have been a missile the Gundam had just taken. That decided her next move for her, if she wanted to survive, she had to take out the fortresses first. She didn't have to completely destroy the machine, just take out the power supply. The alert warned her of the incoming missiles, giving her time to dodge the flurry. It was obvious they where using the heat the battery was giving off to target the machine. And, while she couldn't stop them from doing it, she could confuse them. Switching to thermal vision, Armitage quickly searched for the other mobile suits, they would be blazing, multi coloured beacons against a grey environment. Unfortunately, she could only see the one, heading for the rear of the fortress that had just become active. Pulling strait backwards, using the thrusters to lift the mobile suit and the leg mounted boosters to push the machine back, Armitage used the ciws to destroy the missiles. With all the missile downed, she moved Fury towards the base, creeping along the side until the mobile suit could see the adjacent mobile base. Levelling her beam rifle at the side of the mountain face, Armitage felt a plan form, whole, in her mind . Enlisting the zoom function to get a more precise shot, Armitage moved the rifle, the screen showing the movement in real time, like a camera man moving. Her aim settled on a jut of rock, protruding from the mountain face, it looked big enough to be a distraction. Staring through the scope, she noticed that there where crimson; bell shaped flowers growing on her target. Blinking, Armitage lifted her visor and rubbed at her eyes, checking to make sure she wasn't seeing things. No she was definitely seeing crimson bells. The crimson bell and it's counter part had become the Olympion's national treasure, representing the purity and the strength that the people possessed to thrive in environment so hostile. It was so important that it had been officially placed upon the nations flag, proudly displaying the two wonders to the world.

The destruction of New Hope during the war of the bells had reduced the number of flowers to a mere hand full. Armitage had never even seen one, let alone touched one. She couldn't bring herself to destroy the plant that had come to represent to the rest of the world. Changing the position, Armitage fired level with the ledge and to the right, vaporising a large chunk of the rock, loosening the rocks above. With nothing for the rocks to cling to, and no support beneath them, the rocks became the toys of gravity, pulling them away from the side of the mountain they had been apart of for many years. As they fell, there speed began to increase, descending towards the Mac-c. A second later every gun and missile port at the basses disposal fired, aiming at the debris heading for them. The instant the fortresses defences changed direction, Armitage fired her machines thrusters at full power, using the boosters to increase the speed.

Darting between the two basses, Fury set down at the rear of the fortress, pulling it's beam sabre into hand as it moved. Carefully peering around the corner Armitage saw an enemy Suit standing just around the corner from her. Silently lowering the mobile suit to the ground, Armitage selected a rock and hurled it out from the rear of the base, bouncing it off an up turned truck. The Pendragon span, looking for the source of the noise, doing what Armitage had hoped it would. Unable find the source of the noise the Pendant disappeared from Fury's sights, no doubt using the Mac-c as cover.

The barrel of the beam rifle appeared a split second before the mobile suit it belonged to turned to face the adjacent fortress. As soon as the barrel appeared, Armitage activated the beam sabre, thrusting its arm forward, piercing the cockpit. The mobile suit instantly went still as Fury retracted the beam sabre from the cockpit and re-docked it. Placing Fury's shield against the Pendragon's chest, Armitage had the mobile suit place the barrel of the rifle against the Pendragon's hip. Lifting the mobile suit, Armitage fired the thrusters and darted around the corner into the enemies firing line. Fury's targeting system ran over the enemy mobile suits, logging there position and totalling there numbers. Located on a peripheral screen was a counter that told the pilot the number of enemies in the immediate vicinity of the mobile suit, the counter read eleven. The Pendragon had arranged themselves into to a straight line, creating a wall of sorts. They had divided themselves into groups, one with five, the other with six. The group of six mobile suits stood, with there shields held out protectively. The six mobile suits had intersected there shields, creating a solid defence. The group of five where crouched down, there shields held horizontally to protect there bodies with the rifle resting above the shield, ready to target the enemy. Immediately the crouching Pendragon opened fire. Using the Pendragon as a shield, Armitage targeted the Mac-c and fired, punching through the plating and causing an explosion. Shrapnel perforated the unprotected side of the mobile suit closest to the fortress, killing the pilot and rendering the mobile suit inoperative. The force of the explosion scattered the Pendragons, sending them crashing into each other and disorientating them.

Targeting a lone mobile suit, Armitage took it out with a shot to the chest, sending surges throughout the systems, resulting in an explosion. Surging forwards, Armitage threw the mobile suit she had been using as a shield into one of the Pendragon's trying to shoot her exposed side. The Pendragon took the shots to the chest and head before exploding and knocking the mobile suit off it's feet. Sweeping the shield into position in front of her machine, Armitage altered the thrusters, sweeping the Gundam in a large arc, dodging enemy fire. Opening the right hand beam sabres compartment, Armitage returned fire, the beam rifle keeping the Pendragons moving. Sweeping the machine in another arc, Armitage avoided the enemies barrage and closed the distance on two mobile suits. Opening fire on the first, her shot taken across the highly stressed shield, Armitage switched the rifle out for the beam sabre, sweeping it in a diagonal arc, the beam seeming to bend with the motion. The Pendragon that had been fired upon was forced to change the direction of the shield when the Pendragon beside it exploded from Fury's Beam sabre attack. The moment the shield took the shrapnel, the shield came apart. Discarding the handle, the Pendragon opened fire with it's beam rifle while reaching around to grab it's beam sabre. Armitage manoeuvred Fury on foot, dodging the Pendragon shots with servo power alone. It was unfortunate that she was burning through the battery power, she would have to let the research and development department know that the booster, while powerful even in earth's gravity, was too much a drain on the mobile suit. With the additional drain of the Phase Shift as well, some kind of balance would have to be found before the machine could be mass produced. For the moment, Armitage would have to deal with it.

With all the dodging, Fury and the Pendragon's came into each others beam sabre range. Both machines activated there beam sabres at the same time, the Pendragon bringing the weapon around for a horizontal slash that Fury blocked. A barrage of fire had the Gundam ducking behind it's Shield, before it could counter with it's own beam sabre. Quickly firing the ciws at the beam sabre wielding Pendragon to force it away, Fury's pilot tried to think of her next move. The Pendragon retreated, as she wanted, while firing the ciws implanted in the head. With no time for any thought Armitage had Fury lean out of the line of fire, switching out the beam sabre for the rifle, the colonel simultaneously opened fire on a group of five mobile suits, trying to support there comrade. Catching one on the right leg, Armitage felt frustration well up in her as the other machines blocked her shots. No wonder the Olympion forces where so hard pressed when forced to fight on the ground. Suddenly missing a leg beneath the knee, the mobile suit toppled into the Pendragon next to it. The Pendragon caught it, almost instinctively, and Armitage slammed a shot into each of them before they could react, feeling a sense of victory in the accomplishment. The other three mobile suits where thrown into each other, providing an easy target that the Gundam pilot was more then willing to take advantage of, getting the three of them in one shot, while they tried to recover. Turning, Fury ducked under the beam sabre strike, shooting up from the hip at the sudden mobile suit's cockpit. The Beam sabred Pendragon dodged back, avoiding the beam fire. More beam fire from in front of her had Fury ducking back under the shield, forcing the machine to walk backwards. Armitage had no where to go, with the shield taking the hits, and her steady backwards progress, she took a second to look at her battery, she was down to mid yellow, she would have to think of some thing quick or she was going to run out of power before she got the chance to even see the new mobile suit. With a low powered, quick burst of the thruster pack, Armitage jumped into the air laying down a barrage of accurate shots that had the beam sabre wielding Pendragon dodging backwards and other Pendragon's ducking behind there shields. Activating the Beam sabre as the machine descended, Fury swept the beam sabre down into the closest mobile suit's chest, catching the pilot off guard. Sweeping the sabre to the right, Armitage cut the end off the next Pendragon's shield as she swept it in a horizontal arc through the torso. The third mobile suit blocked with it's shield, fighting back with it's ciws. Fury intercepted the shots with the shield, bringing the beam rifle up to put two shots in the torso of the machine. Ducking beneath the next suits attempt to bludgeon Fury with it's shield, Armitage stabbed the machine in the torso, drawing the blade up into the chest. The Pendragon shuddered, jerked then exploded,sending shrapnel every where.

Fury took it's share of shrapnel on the shield. Pulling the shield down, Armitage noted that the shrapnel had been embedded in the shield. Letting out a relieved breath, thankful that she hadn't needed to loose any more much needed battery power. Fury span lifting the shield to take the expected attack, only for the shield to be swept assigned. Firing the beam rifle, Fury pushed the Pendragon back, chasing it with a barrage of ciws and beam fire. Before Armitage could sight the Pendragon for a kill shot, another Pendragon rushed towards her, firing the beam rifle in a haphazard way. Without the shield, Fury had no choice but to dodge the attack. However, as much as possible, Armitage tried to keep the machine from leaving the point it was standing on. The Pendragon continued it's rush, coming straight at Fury. Still, thankfully, the wild shooting was easy to dodge, a combination of good judgement, quick piloting reflexes and a responsive unit. Carefully, Armitage aimed for the Pendragon's power core, located in the chest. So far she had been lucky, however, she wasn't willing to risk her luck outlasting the wild firing of the mobile suit charging her.

One shot, one kill, that was how it had to be from now on if she was going to destroy the new prototype. As soon as the target was locked in, Armitage opened fire, impaling the charging mobile suit with the shot. The Pendragon stilled, as the power went out of the mobile suit then toppled backwards, exploding as it fell. The beam sabre wielding Pendragon came back at her screaming insensibly through the mobile suits tannoy system, beam rifle blazing continuously, beam sabre up raised. Fury put a kill shot straight through the mobile suits cockpit, killing the pilot instantly. It seemed he had forgotten one of the most important rules of battle, lose you composure, lose your life. He'd been wide open because he had been angry. Fury swung round, ready for the next attack, however none came. Carefully, Armitage docked her beam sabre and crouched to pick up one of the Pendragon's Shields, she didn't know where hers was so she would have to make do with the one she had. Raising the beam rifle vertically, Fury moved back against the mobile suit fortress. She wasn't willing to get caught from behind this time. Carefully, Fury walked the length of the fortress, occasionally looking behind it. Seeing no one directly challenging her, Armitage switched her view to thermal, trying to find the remaining mobile suits signatures. Carefully making her way to the edge of the fortress, Armitage scanned the immediate area. The problem was that, being so close to the fortress, the heat from the secondary generator was preventing her from seeing anything more then the fortress. With a huff of failure, Armitage switched back to normal vision and lowered the rifle to rest against the mobile suits chest. At this point she was in a better position then they where.

Because of the development of Phase shift and the flight packs, the Olympion military had developed there batteries to the point where moving and, even, shooting didn't take up that much power. While the battery would be drained quickly if the active phase shift took hits, just running the phase shift armour didn't suck the battery nearly as much as it used to. The Brianon military, having never needed to improve the efficiency of their batteries, where now finding themselves lagging behind. But, if what she had heard about the new mobile suit is true, the Brianons may be catching up faster then any one had thought. The surprise release of the Dragon Gundam, a new machine, had created the dead lock they where in at the moment. Though it was only one suit, it's new rapid fire beam rifle compensated for the mobile suits short comings in flight. This was one of the reasons that the dead lock, after the initial attacks, had yet to be broken. The Brianons where constantly using newer tactics, while the newer, faster, Guls, the mass produced mobile force of the ; where challenging the existing technology passed it's limits.

Staying alert, Armitage moved the mobile suit inch by inch towards the edge of the fortress. The caution made it slow going, but, she didn't have much choice at this point. If she rushed in, they'd nail her and she'd never complete the mission. If it came to it, though, she could always put the mobile suit on a collision cause and eject. However, that was an absolute last resort. Fury had cost a lot to build both financially and in lives. Eight men had died to get this machine up and running. Three enemy attacks had been made to acquire Fury over the nine months it took to make it. All the while, the Brianon forces where hitting them with their new weapon, The Gundam Dragon.

From her briefing on the mission she under stood that the Dragon Gundam had supplied much of the data that was used to build the new machine. That alone made it worthy of immediate destruction. Alexia Bridges, the Dragon Gundams pilot, had been successful in destroying the Falcon Gundam, the Warrior Blaze Gundam, and the Terror Gul Gundam since the beginning of the war. It begged the question, considering that pilots of those machines where among the elite piloting class, why hadn't any one set up an operation to destroy the machine before the machine took any more Gundams from them? It made sense to destroy the Dragon before it got the chance to do too much damage to their forces. Still her thoughts didn't carry so much as a thimbles worth of weight to the council, who made all the decisions. Armitage wondered if she would ever have to fight the girl, if she continued posing a threat, as she was doing now, then it may come to that. The Dragons pilot was making quite the name for herself, from what the colonel heard. That would make the girls job much harder, the Brianon people wouldn't just be watching the forces any more, they'd be watching her. Everything she said, did, and every one she was seen with, would be up for debate and interpretation. Armitage didn't envy the girl a bit. Some day she'd fall and she'd fall far. Armitage just wanted to get this mission out of the way and get back to outer space where she was more comfortable. Perhaps get Fury assigned to someone other then her. It was designed for terrestrial battle, on the ground mostly, with the thruster more of an additional piece of equipment then a necessity. In Armitage's opinion, Fury could better serve on earth, as it was designed to.

Focussing back on the assignment, Armitage peered around the fortress. Unfortunately there was nothing for her to see, other then the fortress. They had completely disappeared and that meant they where either in retreat or, more likely, planing an ambush. Carefully Armitage moved back on herself, checking to see if the enemy was trying to attack her from behind. She found nothing there when she looked, making her all the more worried and suspicious. They had to be coming from some where, they couldn't just leave her there with the crew of there mobile basses still vulnerable. By her count she had eight mobile suits left to deal with and one Mac-c that could shoot her down if she took to the air. That restricted her movement to ground level, but, it didn't restrict the speed by witch she could move. She was confident that she could out manoeuvre the missiles, even on the ground. Still there was a world of difference between believing that something could be done and actually doing it, and, Armitage wasn't willing to risk the mobile suit and her life on the possibility that she might be able to do something. If she had to, she would, but, if there was another course, she would prefer to take that path. The main problem was knowing where the mobile suits where. Just jumping out there and waiting for them to make there move was the same as tattooing a target onto her mobile suit. This was a difficult situation to make a decision on. On the one hand, if she acted, she could get blown to bits; or cut apart in a cross fire. On the other hand, she could sit here and wait only for the Pendragon's to get away with the mobile suit. Either way it would be a mission failure. She didn't want to be responsible for any more of her nations soldiers dying. The unknown Gundam was a large problem that could cost the Olympians dearly in lives. Armitage was unwilling to fail in this mission, for that reason. She couldn't bare to think of the young men and women who would loose there lives if she didn't destroy that Gundam However she couldn't destroy it if she couldn't find it. With a sigh, Armitage made her decision. Shield first, Fury turned around the corner and walked the length of the fortress, scanning for mobile suits the entire time. If she had the right equipment, Armitage could destroy the fortresses and she wouldn't have to worry about them, but she didn't. Still, there was another way to take them out of the fight, permanently. The fortress she stood beside was the one that was active, as far as she knew the other was still trying to get there systems up. Taking out her cover became the priority. It was just lucky they couldn't hit her, as she was so close to the armour, the guns wouldn't move that far. It was designed for the mobile suits to be able to reload themselves under the cover of the basses fire power, while dealing with any mobile suits that managed to get close enough, themselves. Firing the thruster, strong enough to take her off the ground, Armitage levelled her beam rifle at the fortress's bridge. Through the glass she could see the captain, a dark haired young woman with short but thick hair, making her look like a tomboy. The entire crew was decked out in the non-combatant uniform. It consisted of a shirt with red sleeves with yellow lions on the shoulders and a pale blue chest. The rank was displayed on the chests in cloth bars and stripes, for the captain it was lieutenant commander. Since she was the highest ranking officer on board she was given the unofficial title of captain, meaning she was in charge of the fortress and the crew. This captain, though young had seen quite a bit of action, by the look of it, since she'd earned three Lions heads of Courage, also known as the medal of hero's. It was only given out when the person in question did something truly heroic, such as rushing into enemy fire and rescue a comrade. The three Lions where mounted proudly on the young captains right side, beneath which was two silver wings, each pointed the same direction. The white wings was a symbol that this person had a good head for battle, and managed to keep her people cool under almost any situation. That explained why she was giving the command to fire the heat seeking missiles. Armitage pulled the trigger, not giving the girl the chance to finish her words.

Lowering Fury to the deck, Armitage lifted her helmets visor and ran her hand under her eyes. Pulling back her finger Armitage noticed the water sitting in a pool on her finger. She had long ago given up trying to figure out what made her cry any more, her body seemed to do it whenever it felt like it. With her vision cleared, Armitage lowered the visor to her helmet and took off for the other fortress. Before she could reach the fortress four streams of light forced her to retreat. Four of the last eight mobile suits had appeared to protect the fortress, gathering in a simple line to maximise there combined power, without sacrificing manoeuvrability. The Pendragon's kept up an almost continuous barrage. Twisting between the beams, Fury, suddenly, cut the thrusters on her back, dropping under the beam streaks. Just before she it the ground Armitage activated the boosters in the feet, propelling Fury towards the four mobile suits. Docking her rife, Armitage pulled her beam sabre free, slicing the middle mobile suit across the waist. The remaining Pendragon's turned, opening fire on Fury's retreating form. Twirling, Fury opened fire with the ciws; while the feet boosters where disconnected, forcing the enemy to duck behind there shields and temporarily stop firing. Crouching low, Armitage fired the thrusters at full power, propelling herself at the enemy. Throwing the shield she acquired ahead of her, Armitage crushed the head of the farthest Pendragon while she unhitched her second beam sabre. Driving the beam sabres under the shields, up into the cockpits of two Pendragon's. Using the momentum generated by the thruster pack, Armitage managed to further impale the mobile suits. Cutting off the thrusters, Armitage used the boosters in Fury's feet, to push herself away from the mobile suits before they could explode. Docking one of the beam sabres, Fury freed the beam rifle, firing at the downed mobile suit with the shield in it's face, destroying the cockpit, just to be on the safe side. She didn't know what secondary systems the mobile suits possessed.

Fury moved on to the fortress,the pilot hoping that the last four Pendragon's would engage her and she could destroy the last resistance all at once. The fortress suddenly came alive, firing there missiles and gatling guns at her all at once. Reversing thrusters, Fury retreated, staying just a head of the missiles and bullets. There was no way she could get through that kind of barrage without a shield to take some of the damage. Worse the missiles where heat seeking, making the mobile suit one giant, moving, dart board to them. The thrusters flared white flame as they accelerated to there maximum speed, while the boosters in the feet added their power to the speeding machine. Still, Armitage had a plan to escape the barrage. Turning her back to the projectiles coming at her, Armitage streamlined the machine in an effort to maximise the speed she was using by lowing the resistance. Heading straight for the adjacent mobile fortress, Armitage hoped that her plan would work as she had the mobile suit leave the ground, angling up, over the fortress she had just gutted. Armitage, at just the right time, shut down the propulsion systems.

Falling rapidly, the momentum the machine had generated sent the mobile suit over the edge of the damaged fortress. Hitting the ground, Fury quickly moved out of the way as the missiles followed Fury's path, only to collide with the fortress. The bullets, not having there own computer targeting systems on them, slammed uselessly into the ground. Debris crashed into the ground where Fury had been, making the colonel very glad that she had guessed right. Standing up, Armitage tried to see anything in her immediate surroundings that could have been considered a threat, the thick smoke from the explosions making it difficult to use the normal vision. Switching to thermal imaging, Fury looked around, taking stock of everything that was in the area. Armitage let out a relived sigh, there weren't any mobile suits in the direct vicinity, that Fury could detect. She was hale, hole, and healthy, and that was all that mattered right this second.

Armitage, having gotten her breath back, moved over to some debris she had seen during the thermal scan of the area, thankful that the smoke had now all but dissipated. A plan formed in her mind as she took stock of the large jagged pieces of smouldering armour. Docking the beam rifle, Fury picked up the smaller pieces of armour. Opening a compartment in the left hand hip, Fury stuffed it full of the pieces, not caring about closing it after wards. With that done, Fury picked up a piece of debris, looked at it carefully, then discarded it. Again a piece of debris was picked up and, again, it was discarded. A third piece, then a forth, until, the mobile suit came upon one of the biggest pieces of armour there and moved it towards the front of the fortress. Returning to the debris, Fury selected a medium sized piece of armour and carried it to the larger piece, leaning it against the fortress. Picking up the larger piece, Armitage fired the thrusters at full power, throwing the mobile suit sideways at the machines limit of speed. The Mac-c fired it's defences, the storm of missiles coming straight at Fury. Armitage reared back and hurled the large armoured piece at the missiles, buying the few seconds she needed. Turning, Fury pointed the palm at the armour leaning against the Mac-c. From the underside of the wrist came a a grapple attached to a strong wire. The grapple fired, snagging the debris piece. The grapple tightened resolutely onto the piece and the wire went tight, pulling the piece into fury's waiting hand.

Armitage had chosen this piece of debris for two reasons, the first was that it was thick as well as tall, the second reason was that it had a mounting of some kind that made an excellent handle. Thrusting the make shift shield out, Armitage braced in her seat as the bullets, unobstructed by the metal that had detonated the missiles, rained down like hail stones. The fortress armour held, the metal distorting as the small; high speed projectiles rapidly slammed into it. The continuous assault forced Armitage to shift Fury's feet or fall. Gunning the thrusters at full speed, Armitage jumped backwards, out of the range of the bullets. The bullets cut off for a second while the barrels adjusted for a more accurate shot. At the same time, the fortress fired a new volley of missiles. Grabbing the shrapnel from the compartment, Fury hurled the pieces at the first line of the explosives. Then, Fury fired it's thrusters and swung it's self in to a wide arc, avoiding the next grouping of missiles as they couldn't change direction fast enough. The rest of the volley was caught in the explosives shock wave. The guiding computers malfunctioned and the missiles impacted each other as they tried to manoeuvre through non-existent obstacles, destroying themselves. The Fortress fired another volley of missiles, followed by a storm of bullets. A second folly of missiles was fired after the gatling guns finished there burst. Armitage cut the thrusters, taking the bullets across the armoured plating. At the same time, Armitage adjusted the mobile suits thruster direction. The first wave of missiles was right on top of her before she flared Fury's thrusters and retreated to the dead fortress. The missiles didn't had the time to turn, again, the first line driving into the ground before exploding. Three of the lines behind the first where destroyed in the backlash. The last few lines where torn apart by the bullets as they flared there miniature directional thrusters and slowed down. More missiles arced up out of the top of the fortress, trailing smoke from the small explosives. Armitage had no other choice but to abandon the fortress as the heat seeking missiles here now able to track her mobile suit, even when hiding behind the fortress. Readjusting the thrusters Armitage threw the remainder of the shrapnel at the lead missiles, as they arched over the dead Mac-c in there attempts to get to Fury, and fired the thrusters at full power; sliding into the resulting cloud. Picking up the remains of an exploded missile, Fury hurled it as the rest, taking out another two missiles. Since they exploded prematurely, they caught the other missiles in there wake and they impacted each other and detonated as well. Firing the thrusters at full, Fury unhitched the beam rifle in preparation to attack.

Armitage looked down at the battery screen, pressing her back to the side of the fortress to keep the fortresses weapons at bay. The screen showed three bars of yellow left, she was getting dangerously close to the red zone. She hadn't taken that many knocks to the suit so it had to be the thrusters. Armitage had already decided the only cause of action for that and, so, put it out of her mind, for now. Moving slowly down the length of the Mac-c, Armitage kept the mobile suit scanning for Pendragons. She couldn't let the enemy sneak up on her while she was dealing with the fortress. Remaining tense, Armitage reached the front of the fortress without any problems. Firing the thrusters on low power and argumenting the lift with the boosters in the feet, Armitage lifted Fury level with the fortress's bridge and opened fire, immediately. Swinging the mobile suit from the right side of the bridge to the left, still maintaining a constant barrage of fire, Armitage made absolutely sure that the crew on the bridge where dead. The walls where shredded like paper, giant holes where the Combat information Centre, commonly known as the cic, had once been. The fortress's helm computer had a semicircular groove carved into it, the buttons and panels having physically vaporised, along with the helmsman. The station next to the smoking remains of the helm was a secondary helm that was used as a back up, it always paid to be prepared. Fury turned the beam rifle on that as well, ripping it to pieces. In the centre of the bridge was a single chair, the captains chair. The beam rifle burned through the man sitting in the chair, the back of the chair and into the back wall, before any one in the room could even react to the devastation to the cic. Next came the communication station, located along the same wall as the cic but having been position at the peek of the ramp, next to the door. This station monitored the airwaves and passed information to others, both with in the ship and to where ever else it was necessary to send it. Without taking the finger from the trigger, Armitage swept the gun into the communications station, killing the young black hared man who had been in the position, the fear on his face reaching her even though they where across the room from each other. Armitage swept the Gundams arm around the bridge heading for the radar station. The woman that monitored the station, a beautiful slim pink haired woman was already running for the door in a panic. The beam rifle pierced the fleeing woman in the back just as she reached the door. The woman collapsed into the door just as it slid to the side to let her out. Armitage heard the cry of pain emitted from the woman's throat as the beam cut through the woman's flesh and muscle and, even, bone. She hoped to antagonise the four remaining Pendragon's into action. With any luck, they would be so angry that they would attack her to try and get revenge. Ceasing fire, the constant fire having dropped another bar on the power monitor. Pulling back and setting down on the deck in front of the bridge, Armitage looked around, trying to spot the last of the Pendragon's and, more importantly, the prototype that supposedly existed, though why any one hadn't yet sent it out was a mystery to the colonel.

Everything was too quite for her liking, nothing was moving, not even the wind and it made her nervous. The one thing that was scarier then an ambush is the point before an ambush where, it's coming, but nobody knows where its coming from. The imagination begins to play tricks, shadows became enemies to the fringes of the senses, sounds become enemy movement, native animals became gunshots and war cries, startling, consuming all attention to anther location. No matter how good a solder is, or long a person has been a solder, the solder can't help but imagine things that could happen when faced with a too quiet battle ground. The enemy where here, some where and she didn't want to waste time with guessing games. Armitage had always preferred the direct approach when it came to battle, however, she recognised the necessity of doing whatever it took to achieve an objective. If that meant sneaking up on an enemy location and slitting the solders throat while there in bed, she would gladly do it. It didn't mean that she liked it, though. Olympion was in this war to win it. The Brianon may have started it, but the Olympion's weren't going to back down and let the empire get away with doing whatever it wanted. People had died, innocent people. Olympion people. And they weren't going to let those deaths go without punishment, that was for sure. The attacks had been unexpected and brutal, not to mention faster then lightning. Despite that, those responsible where seen by hundreds of witness to carry the flag of Brianon on there uniforms. It struck the colonel as odd, if you intended to shoot up a foreign nation that your bosses where currently buddy-buddy with, one didn't then go and wear identifiable insignias, no matter if they meant something personally. Still she shouldn't look back on what had happened. She couldn't allow herself to be distracted when, quite obviously, the enemy where up to something.

It occurred to Armitage that the enemy could have been hiding the mobile suit within the fortress itself, they did after all contain a mobile suit hanger each. With there units deployed they had more then enough room to contain the prototype. It was also a possibility that said prototype was being equipped with additional hard ware to make life even more difficult for the pilot. Since she was already on the fortress Armitage decided to check the hanger. A burst of the boosters lifted Fury up onto the bridge. Walking along the Mac-c's roof, Fury kept the beam rifle at the ready and the make shift shield up, in case of attack. It was slow going, manually manoeuvring over or around the now useless gun turrets, but she didn't want to use up all her power. Armitage had a job to do and she didn't want to run out of power before she could do it. Rushing around was the mother of all sins on the battle field. There was a difference between rushing around and moving quickly, one was coordinated and well thought out, the other wasn't. Armitage came to a stop at the rear of the mac-c, seeing nothing below her, Armitage carefully moved the mobile suits head, trying to spot the enemy. Coming up empty, Armitage frowned. Either this wasn't were the mobile suit was hiding, or, the ambush was on the inside of the Mac-c. Unfortunately, the only way she could know which it was, was by opening the rear doors of the Mac-c in front of her and hoping that she didn't get shot to pieces. Holstering the beam rifle, Armitage had the machine jump down from the Mac-c, expecting the remaining Pendragons to pop-up and blast her at any second. Moving to the rear door, Fury took out a beam sabre and walked forward, activating the sabres beam. Running the blade along the gap between the door and the frame, cutting a rising gash in the frame. Carefully, Fury crouched down and peered through the hole in the armour, trying to see the hanger. It would be point less to cut the door out, only to fined that the enemy where hiding in the other Mobile Armoured Command Centre; it was a waste of power that the colonel just didn't need at the moment. Unfortunately, the slash she had cut into the Armour wasn't big enough to see, using the Gundam. In order to check it out, Armitage had two choices, both of which carried considerable risk. The first was to get out of the mobile suit and physically check the interior herself. The problem with that was that she would have to leave the Fury, witch meant switching it off, and it could cost her precious time to reactivate the system if she does get attacked. The second problem with this idea was that, the enemy could be hiding in there after all and, if she goes in with just her hand gun, she would be instantly reduced to dust and the Fury would be in the hands of the enemy. The second option was to cut her way in and see what was inside. The problem with that was that Armitage wasn't willing to sacrifice the power it would take to cut through the door on a possibility. Armitage bit her lip in frustration, wondering what she should do about this problem. It wouldn't take much energy but, if she was wrong and had to fight the Gundam, that small amount of energy could cost her her life. She had to make a decision, though, and she wasn't sure what one to make. It was a pity they hadn't given her anything extra, like hand grenades, in case of a problem like this. Still, she couldn't sit here forever twirling her locks like some ditzy movie bimbo in an action flick.

The figure on the display to her right made up Armitage's mind as to what to do. Gripping both sticks at the same time, Armitage pressed down with her fore finger, rapidly emptying her ciws into the interior of the Mac-c, rotating the head left to right in a slow, deliberate, motion as she fired. Perhaps the only device on the mobile suit that still relied on bullets to perform it's function, the ciw was a defensive measure designed to protect the mobile suit from close in attacks, such as missiles. The bullets disappeared through the hole that was made by the beam sabre, the silence of the cockpit the only companion to the gunfire that was going on out side. Removing her gloved fingers from the trigger, Armitage pressed to buttons on the left hand side panel, activating the microphones, listened for any sounds. Unfortunately she couldn't hear any movement, any groaning of the injured, any sounds of mobile suits tromping around the metal floor of the hanger, nothing. Armitage sighed, the Mac-c was empty, they had to have put it in the other one, good, she now had the advantage again. Fury rushed the Mac-c, knowing that the remaining Pendragon's would, at the very least, try to stop her. They first fired at her from above, concealed between two gun turrets and protected by the Shield lying horizontal in front of it, the gun resting on the rim for support. Armitage tapped the right hand up point button, upholstering the beam rifle from it's place at the small of the back. Fury locked onto the machine, even while dodging, but didn't fire it's beam rifle. Fury kept moving forward, though, it's pilot knowing exactly how to handle the situation.

Unexpectedly, the Mac-c side hatch fell open and a second Pendragon started shooting at Fury, a flight pack resting on it's back. Armitage quirked an eyebrow, what where they up to? They most certainly weren't going to be able to gain any advantage in the air, they had already proven that. This had to be a desperate ploy to either destroy her,or, buy enough time for the Gundam to get away. Perhaps, they hadn't put the machine in the field because it wasn't ready? Perhaps it still had a flaw of some kind that prevented the mobile suit from facing her. Good. If it was flawed she could take the machine with her and have it studied, maybe even use some of the ideas for their future mobile suits. Ducking behind the make-shift Shield, Fury returned fire with the mobile suit standing on the launch platform of the Mac-c, Shield up and determinedly shooting in her general direction. There was no wasted effort,but, there wasn't any aiming either, the Pendragon's pilot was shooting to keep Fury away from them, not to destroy. Ducking back behind the make-shift Shield, Armitage was about to return fire when a warning alarm told her that the battery had dropped into the red. _Crap!_ She couldn't afford to keep trading fire, like this, she had to swap the rifle for the sabre. The beam sabre used less power because it didn't discharge it's power, it simply sustained the small amount that it had taken from the generator. Firing the boosters Fury darted for the standing mobile suit Shield first, the piece of metal becoming perforated with holes. At this rate she would have to ditch the Shield and use her thrusters too. Ducking, Fury threw the make-shift Shield at the mobile suit determinedly standing in the mobile suit launch bay. It was a strange thing that the pilot wasn't trying to advance, nor was the person trying to gain hight to make it more difficult for Armitage to hit them. The Pendragon swung it's Shield, sweeping the make shift shield aside and opening fire with the beam rifle in faster succession, compensating for the mobile suit temporally having no Shield to take hits with. This pilot was good, she had to admit, it was difficult to tell if the pilot was desperate, and thus lucky, or just this good. It didn't matter, though. It was irritating having to fight all these mobile suits, she just wanted to get the mission completed and get back to space.

From the back entrance, a mobile suit came towards her, firing two beam rifles, having mounted two shields on to the mobile suits shoulder armour. An alarm alerted Armitage to the mobile suit coming up behind her. Turning to look at one of the side screens, Armitage took stock of the machine. This Pendragon had the same equipment as the Pendragon from the back. This was certainly interesting, they where herding her, and, she had no choice in doing what they wanted by backing off. They kept up the barrage for a moment then, unexpectedly, the mobile suit on the launch platform fired the flight pack engine and detached the thing from the shoulders, resulting in the flight pack heading in her direction, followed instantly by another dozen or so, visible now the Pendragon had dropped to the deck to escape the flight packs coming from deeper in the armoured vehicle. Flight packs with a large assortment of explosives attached to them. Armitage cussed, swore and cursed, before dodging the first flight pack and using up the remainder of her ciws on the second and third packs, the explosions causing a cloud of blackness to block her vision. Armitage cursed, hard, and flattening herself to the floor as fast as she could.

Slowly the black cloud dissipated and Armitage, cautiously stood Fury up. That had been unexpected. Still, she was running out of time, she had to find the mobile suit. Jumping into the air, Fury's thrusters fired, launching it higher as the Pendragon's opened fire, following the Fury with there rifles. She was loosing power, and, trying to conserve the remaining energy in this situation would be suicide. Having already locked onto the mobile suit, now, crouching on the roof of the Mac-c, Armitage pulled the trigger and speared it with a single shot. Before the energy even hit the Pendant, Armitage was locking onto the next target. Swerving between the enemy fire, Armitage fired the rifle again, piercing the mobile suit standing on the platform before it could bring the Shield up to protect itself. Cutting the thrusters, Armitage shot the beam rifle from the Pendragon that had come from the rear of the Mac-c, causing it to explode and giving Fury the chance to slice the mobile suit that had come from the front of the Mac-c. Shooting the last one while it was still mid charge, Armitage docked the rifle and turned to the launch pad in front of her. She couldn't see anything at all, with all the smoke and sparks the destroyed mobile suit had caused. Armitage turned to the nearest mobile suit and pulled the Shield free from its mountings. With the shield in one hand and the rifle in the other Armitage advanced on the unknown.


End file.
